PROJECT: James Bambu - SOULO

The now Brooklyn-based artist, James Bambu, has released his EP, Soulo, and yes, it is worthy of digestion!

We love SOULO so much and was recommended to write about it before we even got the chance to listen! His sound is reminiscent of John Legend with funk to his beats and passion spewing from his tongue. The lyrics are real and we all have felt the way he has in each [5] track; SOULO is relatable and that's what makes it beautiful.

After five thorough listens, we had to speak to James Bambu himself to complete our meal. Here's what he had to say:

What does SOULO as a project mean to you?

My EP, SOULO, is a documentation of the experiences that I’ve gone through with love. SOULO is the assertion that your soul isn’t meant to be with another soul, or that it’s not ready at the moment, so this is a theory that I was able to come up with based upon where I am in my love life. It literally took a year to write the project because many of the songs on the project were being written as I was experiencing the situations, so this gave me an opportunity to be vulnerable and show a side of myself that many artists don’t think to show in this day and age.

While creating, was there a major event that occurred in your life that inspired a particular track? Or the album?

Yes, several events occurred with myself and with people around me that inspired the different love situations in the EP. For example, last year (around August 2015), I found myself exiting a situation that could’ve turned into a relationship I knew could’ve potentially been even more toxic than the situation itself. Once I made the decision to step away, I felt a big load off my shoulders and I was able to go through that cycle of flushing out the bad feelings and letting go of the demons that I had been holding on to from that situation. “Jungle Beat” is an extremely happy, feel-good song, and the reason why it sounds that way is because for the next two months after exiting that toxic situation, I felt happy, and I felt good, and “Jungle Beat” was written during that time period to be a direct reflection of how I felt about getting back to myself and understanding that that situation was not for me.

Who or what inspires you to keep creating?

My own experiences aren’t the only thing that helps me to create, but I pay attention to what happens around me with my friends and my family. I won’t necessarily write about the love problems my friends come to me with, but I may write a song about overcoming that situation and the feelings of triumph that come along with it, because everybody can relate to that.

What do you want people to understand about James Bambu?

I want people to understand that, yes, I do love to sing, but I’m here to create music that projects feeling. I try to recreate certain feelings through my melodies and harmonies, which in turn makes the songs relatable, not only because of the lyrics but because there’s a feeling of familiarity with each song’s personality that each and every person can experience and relate to completely.

Who is James Bambu to you?

To me, James Bambu is an extension of the type of Soul artists that have always come from Georgia. I’ve simply found a way to transfer a familiar, classic sound that hasn’t been felt in a while to something that can be seen as attractive to our generation while serving its purpose in the music industry, and within our own people.